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So I live in Pakenham, one of the designated Victorian COVID hotspots, and I just went to get tested at a local walk-in clinic. It's advertised on the council website alongside the Dandenong drive through testing site as our 2 close options.
I could've gone to Dandenong or to the Cranbourne East site that opened today, but reports are that these can take hours of waiting - indeed, I later heard that Casey Fields had opened at 8am (2 hours early) and had to close by 10:30. I don't have a huge amount of time today
Cardinia Shire is a Hotspot with 5 active cases, and no new cases this week up to 7am this morning. I'm not sure if today's increases included some from Cardinia. Those 5 cases are reported as being from a single family, and contracted outside the council area.
So I'm fairly confident I do not have COVID - I've no symptoms, and for the last 3 months have been fastidious about personal hygiene, isolation, and social distancing. I'd seen the Premier's update asking everyone in hotspots to get tested, but that wasn't why I went.
My grandmother passed away last night (very peacefully in her sleep at 94), there will be a funeral next week, and I wanted to give my family peace of mind as they know I live in a designate hotspot and will surely have questions.
I turn up at about 12:20 - a small queue of cars is on the road and traffic management tells me the testing is closed til 1pm, and they only have enough testing materials for about 50 tests. Fair enough, they're a local walk-in centre. I join the queue.
Shortly after 1pm we can drive up the driveway - this centre is attached to council offices, it's a self-contained site on a hill - and at the top there's nobody offering clear directions but an obvious line of social-distancing crosses on the driveway & path.
I join the line - about 15th, very quickly becoming a line of at least 40. I think traffic management at the bottom had been turning excess people away, but can't be sure. The queue of cars had definitely stretched a couple hundred metres and around a corner.
Soon the queue is led into a long demountable classroom - no tape on the floor here, but mostly folks are keeping acceptable distance - and told that when the staff are ready we'll go one by one back across the driveway to the centre for testing.
When the nurse in charge arrives to give instructions, the first thing we're told is that they're a small centre able to test 20-30/hour, and they're not going to test anyone without symptoms who hasn't been explicitly directed to get a test - Yep, that's me.
She acknowledges that the Premier's advice was for everyone in designated hotspots to get tested, but their centre has not been given updated directions to test all comers. That's frustrating, but understandable.
The Premier's statement had only come out about 10 minutes before, and had noted that the focus for the next 3 days was Keilor Downs & Broadmeadows. So after 10 minutes standing (socially distanced) in an enclosed room at a COVID testing site, I left.
And, in a manically paranoid manner, I doused my hands & exposed skin in sanitiser, came straight home to shower, then threw all my clothes in the wash. Awkwardly, I'd done all my other washing this morning, so now I have no dry pants to wear 
But the thing about this experience that scared me the most was the conversations I overheard at the testing site - from people who were a little more casual about how far they stood from each other, who happily spoke a little louder so people further away could hear
Things like - "My parents had Chicken Pox parties for all of us, we should just have COVID parties and all get over it quicker", from a woman with a small child there.
Or - "It's all bullshit, it's just happening now because it's winter and everyone gets sick anyway"
Or - "It's all bullshit, it's just happening now because it's winter and everyone gets sick anyway"
Or, from a cheerfully shouty & not distanced person - "I'm a casual in hospitality, so if I'm sick I still have to turn up. I'm sure it's just a cold".
My favourite though - "People are going to die anyway, we need to just give everyone the virus so they get better and we can open up again. Everyone's out of work and can't afford food!"
And as I skirted around people and back out the door and ran from that horror directly into a dettol shower as fast as I could, I reflected on what I'd witnessed. Here's where I got to -
If people think that the tacit approval for the protests that was apparently evident in Dan Andrews decision to not legally (or violently) prevent them has relaxed community attitudes to the virus, resulting in increased transmission in Victoria (clearly false, but anyway) -
What then has been the effect on community attitudes of the Prime Minister & Federal Government insisting that we need to reopen the economy? That we need to keep visiting shops and open borders so that tourism can operate again?
What effect has there been on the reluctance of people to isolate & stay home from work in the unwillingness of the Prime Minister & Treasurer to extend JobKeeper eligibility to more workers, or guarantee business support past September
Would we, as a country, be in a better position to reopen the economy now if our Federal Government had roundly condemned the idea that a certain level of economic activity had to be prioritised over public health and safety?
And what would have been the affect on community willingness and ability to stay isolated if we had more confidence in our government to care for us, in our healthcare & education to operate over distance, in our public safety nets to cover everyone?
Anyway, I'll get a test when they come to my door I guess. Stay safe, wash your hands, protest at a safe social distance while wearing a mask, join your union, invest in green energy, fund the ABC properly, and treat each other with kindness.
